Just how bad is the Trans-Tasman relationship? | The Jackal

17 Aug 2017

Just how bad is the Trans-Tasman relationship?

As the finger wagging continues both here and over the ditch about Australian MP Barnaby Joyce being outed as a New Zealand citizen (oh the horror!) it's probably work pointing out just how bad our political relationship with our closest allies and neighbours has actually become.

Here's The Project's Jesse Mulligan summing up the Australian and New Zealand relationship:


What I find most strange about all this is that the NZ Minister for Foreign Affairs, Gerry Brownlee, apparently failed to inform the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Julie Bishop, about the top secret information concerning a Liberal party MP being in breach of the Australian constitution. Under their rules he can no longer remain in Parliament.

Weirdly enough, Bishop and Brownlee were both in Fiji at a meeting of Pacific Forum foreign ministers together (after Brownlee had been briefed about Barnaby's dual citizenship), so either the right wing government's of both countries view each other with complete disdain or somebody is telling porkies!